


Out of Hand

by Locksnek



Series: UngNa dumpster fires [2]
Category: The Dark Crystal (1982), The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Bugs, I'm still on my bullshit, Other, Skeksis generally being vaguely handsy and creepy, Swearing, bones - Freeform, i have no idea how that edited my tag to bones - freeform but I had a good chuckle over it, loss of limb, morbid sexual situations, phegnese, semi-explicit sexual situtations, skekna gets by with a little help from his friends, some chapters may contain specific warnings in start notes, which sounds so much more wholesome than it's going to end up being
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:55:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 13,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24940438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Locksnek/pseuds/Locksnek
Summary: How SkekNa tried to keep his hand, when and why it went away, and what he did about it.
Relationships: SkekUng/SkekNa
Series: UngNa dumpster fires [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1823725
Comments: 60
Kudos: 22





	1. Brunch with SkekShod

**Author's Note:**

> This is another one of my UngNa trashfires, or it will be. I'm on a roll.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SkekNa thinks he will find sympathy in SkekShod. Or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note since this first chapter is so short, I'm publishing the 2nd chapter concurrently, do make sure to check the next chapter out after this. ^_ ^

“You can’t possibly be defending him. I mean, look what–” SkekNa makes a vague gesture in the direction of SkekShod’s neck, the raised bald jagged scar over his damaged trachea. 

“Thirty-one point sixty-seven trine and about six hours ago. I don’t dwell,” the Treasurer returns in his unfortunate voice.   
  
  
“You _don’t dwell_ and yet you remember exactly how many…” Recalling SkekShod does in fact have a savant-like grasp on quantities of any sort, and could probably recite something as inconsequential as how many minutes ago he had his breakfast and how many bites it took, SkekNa abandons that line of argument. “Look, naturally, we all had to accept that we need an Emperor. I shared your reservations. But it was the best choice, right? Order and all. But _this_ is a whole different thing.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Yes, it is!”

“You hit the Priest.”

“Skeksis hit each other all the time. You hit me yesterday. I hit you back. Over the last smimi wing. All in good fun.” SkekNa cants his head to point out the scratch where SkekShod had indeed whacked him across the cheek over a breaded morsel.  
  
  
“You hit. The Priest. At breakfast,” SkekShod reiterates with as much vigor as his wrecked vocal anatomy can manage.

“Yeah, so? SkekZok’s not the Emperor.”  
  
  
“You’re daft. Can’t just go around hitting any and all Skeksis who aren’t Emperor. Or hadn’t you noticed?” Seeming exhausted by his lengthy speech, SkekShod dips his head a bit, eyes hooded, as if contemplating a little nap.

“Well fuck me, I thought that’s how we did things around here. In the past week alone, I’ve hit SkekGra, SkekLach, SkekLi, SkekUng–” SkekNa pauses, having run out of fingers on his right hand to list folks off. He looks at the fingers on his left hand and feels that strange new cold lurching sensation in his guts again.  
  
  
“You said yourself: There’s an order. You don’t hit a priest. Just not done.”

“How was I to know that? I never had the urge to hit the gilded windbag until this morning. Usually because I avoid his company, him being so annoying. No one told me.”

“No one should have to tell you. Ever see _anyone_ hit SkekZok? Even Emperor?”

“Well…” SkekNa looks around somewhat sheepishly, what measure of shame he’s capable of starting to seep in as he realizes the full extent of his misstep, his lack of attention to the implicit hierarchy. “No. But–SkekShod, this is excessive. A priest, for fuck’s sake, should request…” He searches for the term, for that thing he himself has never exercised. “Clemency? I don’t see why you defend him. He got you unzipped right down your throat with a sceptre.”

SkekShod volunteers a dull glare. “SkekZok didn’t do that. Emperor did.”

“Because you questioned SkekZok.”

A shrug. “ _Disagreed_ with SkekZok. Don’t disagree anymore. I don’t dwell.”

SkekNa spits in frustration.  
  
  
The Treasurer glares a bit more forcefully. “Clean floor up. Rags in the cabinet. I don’t dwell. I suggest…you not do so, either. Will make it easier.” He curls up into his armchair and begins sorting though some trinkets on the small table beside him, managing to make the task appear both idle and important, dismissing his guest.


	2. Tea with SkekZok

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe SkekZok can be convinced to show clemency...after all, he is a priest...

“I…took counsel with the Treasurer,” SkekNa says as carefully as he can. It’s not that he’s stupid, but his voice frequently runs ahead of his brain. He spends much of his days bossing around small people who lack any recourse, and he sees now that this has made him a tad too free with his words and actions. “SkekShod having been in something of a similar situation. But very different too, of course, I realize. He advised humility, self-reflection. I am– “ SkekNa studies the teacup shaking a bit in his hand. Is he even holding the damn thing right? It’s hard enough to hold this little bastard in his dominant hand, let alone trying to envision holding it with the other one. “–a rather coarse person, my lord. It, well, comes with my work. But that’s really no excuse. You were tasked with a sacred role by the Emperor himself. I overstepped, very gravely.”

“Ah,” is all SkekZok has to say in response, as though some pithy comment about pleasant weather has just been made. The Priest takes a deep, overly appreciative sip of his own tea.

The tea is dreck. SkekNa forces another swallow and tries again. “I am–forgive, I am used to having command of the help in most capacities, particularly the choral group. It–the conversation over breakfast, it caught me off my guard, you understand. It’s not that I object to having a dedicated choir specifically for sacred chants. It’s quite a fine idea, in fact.”

“Indeed,” says the Priest with that same inconsequential lilt to his voice, although his head is inching toward that dangerous tilt that precedes his leer. He is clearly enjoying this. Which, being a sheerly sadistic individual, he would. 

Almost a shame, SkekNa reflects, that they don’t get along, but sadism alone isn’t necessarily a unifying common interest. SkekZok is aloof, fancy, puts on airs, garotes you with a silken scarf so as not to get blood on his hands but grins all the while the light leaves your eyes. People like SkekUng, good honest types, or rather terrible honest types who make no effort to conceal or even wash their bloodied talons, are much more fun to be around.   
  
SkekNa’s hand is quivering with rage in addition to anxiety now. He sets the cup down and folds his claws in his lap, trying to look civilized. “I was, simply put, surprised to learn that you’d requisitioned some of the finest Podling singers from my chorale and–completely–That is to say, I was unaware of this fact at all until after I learned you’d gotten the Scientist to modify their vocal apparatus.”  
  
“An inconvenience to you,” SkekZok murmurs with a cordial nod, his mouth starting to quirk up just a bit at its corners. 

“Well, I mean, no and yes. There are plenty of Podlings where those came from. They were very talented, suited very well, but replacements can be found in time. And of course, I–deeply wish that you should have at your disposal whatever resources you need for…liturgical purposes. The thing that caught me a little off my guard, the thing where I misstepped, is that I hadn’t been–” _Don’t say ‘asked,’ don’t say it._ “–made aware in advance that these Podlings were being diverted to other duties and surgically modified.”

The Priest regards him silently with those heinously bright eyes, the leer now out in force, and again sips his tea with palpable gusto.

“And so, when I heard that casual mention of it, from your own mouth, my lord, at breakfast, that was truly the first I’d heard of the whole thing. I wasn’t expecting that news. I’ll know better, next time. I should not have…struck you.” SkekNa bows his head deeply, almost to his lap, trying to show some humility for a rare instance in his damn life but also genuinely afraid.

“And called me some rather unfortunate epithets, which I would hesitate to repeat in my own quarters lest the paint peel off the walls,” SkekZok says helpfully.   
  
“And that.” SkekNa winces. “I was very severely out of line and I did you great offense. I acted out of some ignorance as well. Now that I know how this–how this situation is, you’re welcome to any resources I have on offer, at any time, with no objection or backtalk from me. Given…my offense was one of ignorance, stupidity, and my behavior is correctable–and will be, immediately corrected, my lord–I…” He loses track of the argument he was attempting to make, head still lowered, just able to make out SkekZok’s amused and unmoved expression.

“Yes? Your tea is getting cold, Slave-Keeper, drink up.”

SkekNa raises his head enough to tip some of the stuff politely into his mouth. He needs to hold the cup with both hands (for how long?) as they’re shaking so profoundly, and he nearly hurls the tea right back up. He debates whether to lower his head again but opts for looking SkekZok piteously in the eye. “I’ll remedy this, my lord. The penalty is–hard. Mercy. Please.”

The Priest manages to frown benevolently even while still leering. “SkekNa, the penalty was decided by the Emperor. I advised leniency. There is no more I can do.”

SkekNa has no idea which, if any, of those three things are true.


	3. Evening Cordial with SkekSo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein SkekNa takes his plea for clemency to the top.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SkekNa is dumb as shit, so, he would make the attempt.

“Lord SkekZok told me he…advised leniency, my Emperor.” SkekNa’s hands have not stopped shaking and he is weary of being offered drinks he can barely hold. Emperor SkekSo has a sort of miniature throne room opening off of the antechamber of his apartments, where he can see people he wants to keep at a more imperial distance without inviting them into his living quarters. The room is small and the chair is not terribly ostentatious, but, like the throne room proper, there is no seat for anyone other than the Emperor. This seems a strange time to offer someone a warm, mildly nutty, and rather potent-smelling liqueur, but here it is, shaking in the Slave-Keeper’s grip. He is not sure whether it would look stupider to stand in front of the chair sipping the thing, or to kneel in petition and continue sipping the thing, or set the thing aside on the floor to all-out grovel…

“Yet I’m not SkekZok, am I?” SkekSo’s elegant, toothy head cants to one side a bit, in that way that might convey amusement or might convey impatience. Is this question rhetorical? Before SkekNa can overthink it, the Emperor continues, “Your affront was to SkekZok at face value, but SkekZok’s opinion on it is unimportant. Your true affront was to me, to the Empire, to all Skeksis. Do you understand that?”

This question, decidedly not rhetorical. SkekNa opts for a half-crouched stance, braced with his tail and one hand on the floor. His other hand still holds the drink undecidedly, which at least is nice and warm. This chamber is drafty. “Yes, I see that now. My counsels with others today helped me understand that. There is–an order. There is an order that you, my Emperor, established, to the glory of all Skeksis. Your Priest is not to be struck. I acted rashly. I violated the order of things.”

“Mmh,” SkekSo grunts, in that way where you can’t quite tell if he’s fascinated or not even listening at all.  
  
  
“I’ll rectify my behavior. The Priest is welcome to any of my resources, he’s welcome to the clothes off my back if he requires them. I only–I…”

“I can see this is very difficult for you.” The Emperor casts the hunkered Slave-Keeper a look of mock sympathy. “Drink that up, it’ll calm your poor nerves.”

SkekNa drinks the warm stuff in one long gulp, hand still quivering, slopping some of it down his collar. He feels somewhat less anxious, although, given the degree of anxiety that has haunted his steps all day, that’s not saying much. His head starts to float away a bit. “I deserve some sanction, of course, sire,” he resumes, slurring slightly. “I understand I can’t affront the natural order without some penalty. But this is–frankly, it is really, terribly harsh–Not just in its permanence, but in its mechanism.”

SkekSo raises a brow, sipping his own drink more daintily. “The harshness is commensurate with the severity of your trespass. And anyway, I know you, as I know all my people. I see you delight in delivering harsh castigations to those in your keeping. Surely you can take that which you so revel in giving?”

A confusingly entangled sense of rage and humiliation crash over SkekNa like a wave of saline ocean water biting at his eyes. How dare SkekSo say such a thing to him? It is not the same! The Podlings and other little folk that SkekNa admittedly has some fun tormenting in the course of extracting labor from them–these are hardly comparable to an immortal being such as himself. And yet…and yet, if he expects these frail mortals to take such pain, what does it say about SkekNa himself, if he panics and needs to hold down his gorge and grovels to the Emperor at the mere thought of it? In his confusion and new inebriation, the only protestation he can think of is, “I am a Lord of the Crystal,” words which also would seem to belie his deeds as he licks at SkekSo’s fingers in supplication.

“That feels quite pleasant,” SkekSo pets SkekNa absently on the head with his free hand, “but it won’t change anything. The Scientist is readying the device. I cannot fail my people by going back on my own word. I have decreed the punishment. If you _are_ a Lord of the Crystal, you will take what you’ve earned. If you’re reluctant to do so, you are welcome to leave this Castle and these lands, indefinitely.”   



	4. Midnight Snack with SkekUng

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SkekUng attempts to be helpful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for SkekUng, he does not know how to be appropriate (but nor does SkekNa, so that kind of all works itself out).  
> – – – 
> 
> Slightly heavy-handed authorial side-note: I have no agenda to make people like these rather disgusting characters more, or hate them more, or pity them, or whatnot. (Although if I’ve done any of these things, excellent.) I am just doing a thing about horrible trashbirds who happen to find themselves in an unenviable situation, and have some kind of attachment to each other inasmuch as it lies in their capacity.

“I’m done for, SkekUng.” SkekNa gives up rapping on the door with his perpetually-trembling hands and beats his head against it in despair, every few moments a dull _thunk_.

The door finally flings open inward, and SkekNa stumbles forward. SkekUng catches him with a slew of curses, finally admonishing as he closes the door behind them, “Where the fuck have you been? I spent all day looking for you, ever since the Emperor handed down the sentence and you lit out of there like a sogbird with its bum on fire.”

“Well, first I had to go outside and have a nice scream, you understand, then I went to SkekShod because I thought he could help, then I went to SkekZok and he has awful tea, and then I went to the Emperor and pleaded for mercy and he got me drunk, and by the way, the Emperor has no mercy.”

“Of course he doesn’t! What did you expect, dolt? Who among us has mercy? Do you? Do I?” SkekUng shakes the other Skeksis by the shoulders, glowering, his hallmark string of drool starting to form at the edge of his beak.  
  
  
SkekNa glowers back. “You would. I mean, for me.”

“Unlikely.”

“I’m fucking done for.” SkekNa find himself weeping in craven terror and huddling against SkekUng’s fluffy, mangy bulk. 

SkekUng, startled by the unseemly display, freezes for a moment. He is close to SkekNa and has never seen anything remotely resembling this piteous, emotive outburst from his colleague. To his credit, he musters whatever sympathy a close association can dredge up in one of his ilk, or perhaps he just wants to get SkekNa to shut up. He put his arms awkwardly around the Slave-Keeper. “No you’re not. Things will just change a bit, and then Skeksis will forget about it as Skeksis do after bloodlust is met, and then you’ll get used to it.”

SkekNa stops whimpering, but his face remains buried against SkekUng. “They’re going to make that whole ordeal of it. If they could just, I don’t know, get it over with, it wouldn’t be that bad. They could have gotten it over with this morning.”

“Well, it’s…creative, I’ll give them that.” SkekUng sounds helpless to comfort, and why wouldn’t he be? SkekUng is not a comforting person. “Some metaphor for cleansing festering, rotten ideas from the Empire or some dreck, is how the Priest explained it after you took off. It’ll be done soon enough though.”

“I can leave.” SkekNa looks up at the other’s face frantically. “They won’t make me stay. Emperor even said. Won’t make me go through with it. I can leave, and never come back.”

SkekUng raises his brows, then resumes his glowering. “Pfft. Don’t be a bloody coward, SkekNa.”

“Easy for _you_ to say, you’re not the one–”

“Hssh, come sit down, idiot. Look, here’s some nice biscuits with crushed crawlie and herb paste–”

“Not hungry.”

“Shut up, lackwit, I’m trying to help you!” SkekUng pushes SkekNa back onto the deep burgundy couch along the west wall of his main room, a harmless backward tumble which nonetheless causes SkekNa to cover his mouth to keep his stomach contents from exiting. “Oops. You weren’t kidding, were you?”   
  
  
“Would you like me to puke my guts up all over your Thra-forsaken ugly couch to demonstrate how much I wasn’t kidding, SkekUng?”

“Firstly, my couch is not ugly. Secondly, you’ve deposited more interesting stuff on it in your day.” SkekUng’s grumpy face attains an odd repositioning of features, as though he might be…worried? He sits down next to SkekNa, puts the tin of treats between them but not pushing the matter. “I’ve seen you do things that would even make half the Skeksis in this Castle lose their lunch, but I’ve never known you to be so much as mildly nauseated.”

“Yeah, fuck me, I’m scared, all right? Turns out I’m a useless coward, eh?” SkekNa prepares for contempt. “Care to beat some sense into me, soften me up for the fucking critters?”

SkekUng sits for a few moments looking moderately perplexed (perhaps at his own failure to follow through on SkekNa’s embittered goading). Then he scratches at his stringy headfeathers. “You know, maybe you’re being a bit hard on yourself.”

SkekNa laughs so hard he almost throws up again. “Excuse me?”

“No, hold on, just shut up and listen to me for a second. Skeksis don’t die. Anything we do to the meaningless little folk, if done to us, is forever. We’re not like some fly that can have a wing pulled off and then say ‘fuck it’ and die two days later. You’re right, it is hard.”

SkekNa gapes, fighting against a novel and frightening sense of gratitude. He refrains with effort from throwing himself at SkekUng again, and eases closer to him with a bit more dignity, and rests his head on his shoulder. SkekUng pets him as comfortingly as SkekUng can, which for SkekUng sidles close to molestation, running a hand slowly down from snout to tail and back up, lingering at slightly inappropriate spots. SkekNa doesn’t particularly mind the poor timing and questionable etiquette, although he also ignores it. SkekUng can’t be counted upon to lay lands on anyone in a way that isn’t either violent or lecherous (or both), and clearly has no idea what he’s doing. SkekNa also has no idea what he’s doing, having never sought comfort from anyone. He pokes his snout under SkekUng’s chin as though this might hide him from a world that is suddenly no longer ripe for him to bustle in, a world that demands restitution, and leans in more heavily. 

SkekUng keeps up his semi-appropriate petting for quite a while before raising his head a bit and then leaning back in with one of the crawlie-paste biscuits in hand. “Won’t have you starving on my watch.”

SkekNa reluctantly bites off about half the object in SkekUng’s hand, chewing it weakly but succeeding in holding it down. The latter finishes off the rest of it in a quick gulp, retrieves another one from the tin, and repeats the process. A couple biscuits later, the Slave-Keeper feels a bit of clarity returning to his quivering mind and form, just enough to reckon he’s wasting his time acting pathetic, and nibbles at the hand offering the next morsel instead of the morsel itself. SkekUng has never been one for the concept of restraint, which they have in common, and the two are soon pawing at each other and dragging off layers of clothes as they stumble down the hall. 

The fear is temporarily replaced with a skewed elation as SkekNa curls on the other Skeksis’ bed, letting himself be engulfed under the other’s larger bulk and feeling something overbearingly wrenching as he claws at SkekUng frantically with all limbs. He may not have such an advantage soon, such an ability to grasp someone so thoroughly close, and it occurs to SkekNa to wonder if this is some shadow of what the condemned feel before their execution–poised at the brink of losing something for good, and never having appreciated it enough until it has been transformed without notice into something that has a rapidly-approaching expiry date. Is this what it’s like to feel sad? He feels safe too, even knowing that feeling won’t last. He rolls over on his front, curls up small under SkekUng, to block out the world, pressing frantically into him, the name even coming a couple times over his teeth in a barely-audible murmur. Oddly enough, SkekUng mumbles something that sounds like, “Not hurting you, am I?” Well, he probably doesn’t want to cause SkekNa to puke all over his bed. Understandable. “Not at all.”  



	5. Should I Stay or Should I Go?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A phegnese chase is like a car chase, but stupider.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to some of my pals on the Resistance server for putting up with me dragging my UngNa bullshit into every channel, and for generally being active enablers. <3
> 
> Chapter warning: References to animal abuse.

_S_ kekUng wakes shortly before dawn to find the Slave-Keeper gone. A vanishing act is as likely as not, any time one of them ends up overnight, but the circumstances make it suspicious. SkekNa had been more broken up about his sentence than SkekUng could ever have imagined seeing his colleague. He was clinging like a finger-vine in his need during the night, and wouldn’t be apt to just disappear now unless he intended to vacate the Castle. The spot on the bed SkekNa occupied is still just slightly warm. SkekUng bypasses the other’s quarters and heads straight to the phegnese stable, where the animal assigned to SkekNa is indeed gone. 

  
It should be easy enough to catch up with him. SkekUng, owing partly to his rank as Fleet Commander and partly to his bulk, had assigned one of the halest, fastest birds for himself (not that the awkward, land-bound things are terribly swift even at a trot), while he consistently gives the unhealthiest of the flock to SkekNa. SkekNa has a tendency to abuse them, so it’s just as well to give him the weakest animals who are more likely to croak anyway. Sure enough, the uppermost spires of the Castle are still in view behind them when SkekUng catches sight of the sickly phegnese and its rider making their way through the tall upland grass. SkekNa had left the road soon after clearing the bridge, but the trails of leaning and broken blades of grass and other plants the enormous birds leave in their wake are easy enough to spot.  
  
  
SkekUng tries his best to sneak closer, veering off into a taller patch of grass and hunkering down, but there is really no mistaking him, nor the ruckus the large phegnese makes as it closes with the Slave-Keeper. SkekNa’s hunched head shoots up suddenly, tilting back over his shoulder, and he grimaces in affront.

“Leave me alone, you upjumped menagerist, I’m free to go,” he screeches.  
  
  
“I’m not here to detain you, dumbfuck, I just want to talk to you.”

SkekNa makes no answer and urges his phegnese into its lumbering, tottering canter. SkekUng grumbles and curses to himself, spittle flying as he trots in pursuit. “You’re making a bad choice. Just stop a second, talk to me.” SkekUng draws up even with the fleeing Skeksis. “If you leave now, you won’t be able to come back without even worse consequences.”

  
“Not coming back.” The Slave-Keeper glares, ineptly tries to goad his mount into a sidelong jump, to move away laterally since he can’t outpace SkekUng, resulting in the bird and its rider toppling into the grass.   
  
  
SkekUng reins his own phegnese in quickly and clambers off, snarling at the thrashing phegnese on the ground and yanking SkekNa away just in time to keep him from being crushed under it. “ _Damn_ , SkekNa, how fucking stupid are you? Get yourself killed that way. Really, that worth it, over one hand? Getting smashed by a phegnese? Or exile for life?”

  
SkekNa fights him frantically, snapping at him and cursing, dragging him a ways through the grass and burrs as SkekUng keeps a determined grip on his waist. The Slave-Keeper isn’t shoddy in a fight, but SkekUng is better, and stronger anyway. SkekNa finally stills, panting and frothing, with SkekUng’s tail immobilizing his legs and SkekUng’s teeth in his neck. 

  
“Just let me go. I’m not going back,” SkekNa whines.

  
“You can go, after you calm down and talk to me,” SkekUng mutters through his grip, unwilling to relinquish it and consequently drooling copiously all over the other’s neckfeathers.   
  
  
“Nothing to talk about. Thought I could at least leave _you_ on good terms.”  
  
  
“Why leave at all? What kind of life is that? Who will you talk to, drink with? Podlings? Who will understand who you are, what you are? Sodding Gelfling? Who you going to fuck, a rotting log? A nebrie?”

  
“I’ll make do. I can be very self-sufficient.”

  
SkekUng shakes his head with irritation and bewilderment, inadvertently giving SkekNa a flesh wound.

  
“ _Ouch,_ you dumb oaf, let go! Unless you just plan to kill me here.”

  
SkekUng releases his grip carefully, still making no move to let SkekNa up. He tries to get his mind in order. He may not have quite such a fancy array of words at his disposal as SkekOk or SkekGra, but he at least knows that asking the right questions is key. He must be asking the wrong questions. SkekUng sighs loudly, nostrils flaring. “All right, just tell me, what is it about the idea of living alone in exile that’s somehow more appealing than staying here without a hand?”

  
SkekNa’s glower relents. “I’ll be a laughingstock here. Skeksis will never respect me again. I’ll be–not whole.” The now-familiar flash of terror rises in his eyes again. “I mean, there’ve been bad punishments, sure, Skeksis beat within an inch of their life, occasional toe or talon removed, but–a whole fucking hand? Forearm, actually? That’s–that’s–it’s without precedent. I’ll be mangled, visibly, no way to hide it. I’ll be an outcast, a freak.”

  
“Don’t even try hide it, then. Make the change work for you. We’ll get SkekTek to make you some kind of replacement. Something sharp, hard. Say, some sort of hook. You’ll be terrifying. Your charges will cringe even more when they see you coming,” SkekUng suggests, proud of his quick thinking and creativity.   
  
  
SkekNa chews on his tongue, considering. “Clever. I’m never averse to scaring the help, as you know. But really, how will Skeksis take that? I’ll be–not just not whole, but–unnatural.”

  
“Shock value. It’ll unnerve them. It could work out in your favor, honestly.” 

  
The Slave-Keeper smirks faintly. “I like the way you think. Always have.” He looks away, very awkwardly, as if the candor is worse than the prospect of mutilation. “I would miss you, if I left.”

  
“No shit. Don’t leave.” Giving SkekNa a bit of space to recover from his admission, SkekUng eases off him and sits down in the grass next to him, and keeps up the stream of his talk with grotesque optimism: “And anyway, you say this is unprecedented, but that’s just it. It will _set_ a precedent. Any new insult or injury Skeksis come up with always sets a fucking precedent, yeah? You won’t be the only one missing bits.”  
  
  
SkekNa lies in the grass on his back, watching the clouds scudding overhead. The clouds cover most of the sky in their hurry to get wherever they’re going, precipitantly letting in delicate streams of sunslight and extinguishing them just as quickly. SkekUng watches SkekNa sidelong. It’s a shame, of course, a strange existential burden that neither of them had ever considered before breakfast of yesterday–To be altered, forever. In SkekUng’s private and definitely-never-to-be-shared-with-anyone opinion, SkekNa is striking, mottled black-and-white feathers and a sharp slightly hooked beak. But SkekUng also knows he’s right; the loss of a hand is not the end, and could even add to SkekNa’s distinctiveness. He finally leans down and nudges the Slave-Keeper’s cheek with his own short, drooly beak. “Come on. In a week’s time we’ll be having a nice drink and kicking baby armalig around the courtyard.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is where this is going to become a clusterfuck. Have fun.


	6. Canister (I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SkekNa is in for a long, bad time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Um, all of it? Grotesque descriptions of bug-mediated torture, general suffering, SkekUng's little moment at the end (I can only keep apologizing to God and to my community for him).

SkekUng has roared with laughter at the punishments before. This time he stands by, uneasily, watching the transparent canister strapped and locked around SkekNa’s hand and forearm. To prevent removal, the restraints are tight enough to cut off circulation in time, but that’s beside the point, considering. There are unpleasant things in there, gravid flies ready to deposit eggs in flesh, larvae of a different species ready to consume flesh, a bit of sweetly pungent peachberry paste to speed things along. Not that it isn’t interesting, in its own way, but that sentiment is at uncomfortable odds with other sentiments. SkekNa casts him helpless, pitiful glances, his chest heaving and his throat twitching, at the edge of hyperventilation. SkekUng tries to keep completely impassive, a difficult task for him.

Lots of words, from both the Emperor and the Priest. Blah, blah, blah. SkekNa holds his ground as best he can, eyes squeezed shut now, visibly wincing and grinding his jaw at the sensations of crawling legs and squirming grub bodies. SkekSil and SkekEkt, easily repulsed as they tend to be, watch and comment with typical melodrama. SkekTek, not quite malevolent _per se_ but consumed by the experimental potential of this castigation and his own rare opportunity to be in the spotlight, explains about the saprophagous faunal succession of decay (but SkekNa is not a carcass, is very much alive, and SkekUng has never been more affronted by and frankly alarmed by the little Scientist). SkekOk, trying gamely to keep from bristling, takes diligent notes, SkekLi beside him watching with bright eyes and thinking Thra only knows what. SkekGra smirks, and SkekSo looks as impassive as he can, but bears the shadow of a similar smirk. Others exclaim in derision or horror, or both.

The ceremonials and dramatics accounted for, SkekNa is brought down to the confinement area outside the laboratory, his upper arm and tail chained to the bars of one of the cages there. It would of course be beyond the pale to actually cage a Skeksis, but since the Slave-Keeper’s penalty is unusually protracted, he must be affixed to the bars outside the cage so that he can’t roam about at his leisure and contrive some way to remove or smash the canister. Happily, there are currently no occupants in the cage to witness his humiliation. SkekTek putters around taking notes and sketches, shooting the occasional pointed glare at SkekUng, who is hanging about under the pretext of retrieving the armalig carriage schematics from the lab and poring over them.

When at last the Scientist leaves in exasperation, taking his notes with him and retreating to wherever he goes when he’s actually not in his damnable lab, SkekUng hunkers down next to the Slave-Keeper, who is sprawled on his side with his eyes closed.

“SkekUng? Tell me…what it looks like,” SkekNa says reluctantly.

“Well. A couple of the flies are dead.” (Which means they’ve, as SkekTek self-importantly put it, oviposited their eggs in the other Skeksis’ flesh, and have served out their short lives’ purpose. A few of the flies are still milling around the canister.) “The grubs are very…active.”

SkekNa shudders profoundly as the larvae, some sort of flesh-eating species, munch away. “Yeah, I can feel that. Only wish I’d thought of this first, for someone else. Next Podling that looks at me wrong…”   
  
“Oh, we’ll take every twinge you feel here and pay it forward, mark me on that.”

The Slave-Keeper manages a snicker, but a moment later yelps at a particularly sharp twinge and attempts to curl up in a ball, prevented from doing so by his restraints. SkekTek apparently left just a bit too early to record this impactful moment; the larvae are burrowing in further, reaching subcutaneous tissue. SkekNa grits his teeth and begins to whimper loudly, still unwilling to open his eyes, his free hand flailing around until it lands on SkekUng’s with his quivering talons digging in. SkekUng glances around to ensure none are about to witness his…what would one call this, his weakness?…and curls up next to SkekNa, petting his head carefully. He promises revenge, in the only way revenge can be got since it can’t be turned back on the ones who did this, that they will take this pain out into the world and spread it like a fire in a dry thicket. He doesn’t leave until SkekNa, exhausted, lapses into a semi-conscious state.

SkekUng returns to his quarters and paces for a while in distraction. His mind is more full of conflicting ideas than he likes it to be. He likes things to be simple, practical. He doesn’t like to think that this thing in his chest is pity–no, it’s indignation, on his colleague’s behalf, this torture is excessive–and he’s also not entirely comfortable with the fact that SkekNa’s contortions and noises of pain were _pleasant_ to some part of him. Is that possible, a sadistic sort of pity? The thought is intrusive. _Make those same noises, but for me._ SkekUng grumbles to himself and snacks on the rest of the crawlie-paste biscuits as he walks circles and triangles around his quarters. 


	7. Consumption (I)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SkekNa is still not having a great time. SkekUng, well, does what he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: This is like if the previous chapter slammed some red bull and viagra. I can't issue refunds, but I can hand out barf bags and brain bleach.

Skeksis come around sometimes to gawk, singly or in small groups. SkekNa snarls and attempts ridiculously to lunge or strike at them at first, but soon, even in his anguish and disorientation, he perceives that this amuses them and prompts them to hang around longer. So he tries to act like he’s asleep, even when they goad him and prod him with their clawed toes. The Emperor, thankfully, doesn’t grace him with his presence (or maybe he did once, it’s hard to recall if that was a dream, the idle rapping of the butt end of a scepter on his entrapped arm, some barely-coherent conversation where SkekNa was stupidly groveling again). SkekTek is a particular irritant, forever hovering around and making notes and muttering about how very interesting everything is. SkekNa tries hardest to ignore him. The pain is unabating and many-hued, and SkekTek marvels at how long the process is taking; it shouldn’t take this long, apparently; it’s almost as if the arm keeps trying to heal itself, despite the fact that the canister is now mucky and humid and the reek slithers shamelessly out from under it.

The reek isn’t the only thing coming out of canister. Once the eggs laid by the flies at the beginning hatch, the larvae burrow about at their leisure under SkekNa’s hide, eating little tunnels for themselves, the pain of them growing as their bodies bloat. The only time the Slave-Keeper could bring himself to look at the canister, he immediately regretted it, seeing the movement under his skin, and spent the next quarter of an hour dry heaving painfully. But, although the device is affixed too tightly for SkekNa to get it around his elbow joint and remove it, some of the larvae start to burrow under it. SkekNa, alone at the time (small mercies), screams the first time he sees the pale body and small, shiny black head peeking out of a hole in his skin just above the canister’s strap, immediately grabbing it with the ends of his talons and wrenching it out and throwing it as far from him as he can.

SkekUng comes around when he’s able, keeping a distance if others are about, occasionally curling up against SkekNa with his promises of vengeance when the area is empty of other Skeksis. When SkekUng wises up to the fact that larvae are burrowing out under the strap, he berates SkekNa for pulling them out of his flesh. “Don’t fucking do that, you witless kiznet, you break them in half when you do that with your claws and now the other half is still dead in there.”

“What?!” SkekNa swallows down his gorge, an activity he’s grown too familiar with. 

SkekUng grumps and uses the pads of several fingers to put pressure around one of the holes, prodding deliberately and repositioning his fingers occasionally until the severed lower half of one of the fat, pallid grubs pops out.  
  
  
“Fuck!” screeches SkekNa, trying to scrabble backward and prevented by his restraints.

  
SkekUng snarls. “Quiet. Eat this.”

SkekNa recoils at the thing that was just extracted from him and is now being waved in his face. “No! What is wrong with you?”

“Are you going to let yourself cower over a little bug, or are you going to take some control of this situation? Anyway, good source of protein.”

“I am going to claw your face off when I get out of this stupid contraption.” Regardless, SkekNa squeezes his eyes shut and shallows the grotesque morsel SkekUng is practically force-feeding him. He does have a point, after all.

SkekUng is perhaps more helpful than he knows. When at last the Priest inevitably shows up to gloat, SkekNa tries his best to tune SkekZok out by challenging himself to think about all the squirming grubs, popping them out and eating them. Revenge against the grubs at least is possible. Letting this situation hone him into something still crueler and more dangerous, rather than buckling under it, is possible. SkekZok, who, naturally, can’t be bothered to crease his ridiculous robes by bending down to study the canister, says only, “Stand up.”

  
Well, this whole shitshow is apparently what they thought it would take to get through SkekNa’s head that the Priest is to be treated with deference, so SkekNa obeys him while also doing his best to ignore him. It’s difficult to stand up with the chains wrapped around the jagged cage bars, and frankly he hasn’t been doing it enough, and his legs and back ache from lying about. He stands and stares at the wall as SkekZok peers at the festering canister. The Priest tilts his head this way and that, to take in with his eerie eyes all possible angles of the other Skeksis’ suffering, saying nothing. SkekNa clenches his jaw and thinks vindictively about snapping up mouthfuls of squirming maggots, about chewing them up just enough to spit them wetly back in SkekZok’s face.  
  
  
“My choir,” SkekZok murmurs at last, with mild elation, “is sounding fantastic.”

SkekNa swallows his temper as he’s been swallowing his bile. This is the worst possible time to permit oneself to be goaded. “I am…very humbled and gratified to hear it, my lord,” he manages, using his soft voice, the one with the more pleasant timbre that he rarely resorts to.  
  
  
“Indeed?”

SkekNa glances up, trying to paste an earnest look on his face. “Every day, one learns humility.” He bows his head again, trying to keep the quivering of rage and fatigue in his limbs under control until the Priest leaves.

The next time SkekUng returns, SkekNa halfway wants to explain the change that he seemed to have helped bring about, but finding the words would take too much effort. The Commander removes another errant larva, feeds it to SkekNa, and settles down beside him, nosing up under his chin. SkekNa has been in close contact with SkekUng enough, before this ordeal, that the Slave-Keeper can guess what he’s thinking; SkekUng, whose beak has an excess of vibrissae, can feel the blood pulsing up his neck, and is absently envisioning tearing his throat out. There is no malice let alone intent in it, it’s just the kind of thought that SkekUng has. No one else could get away with even thinking that in SkekNa’s presence, and it makes him snicker morbidly. This sets off a chain reaction: he inadvertently jolts his arm in the canister (if it can be called an arm at this point), sets off waves of pain and nausea that make him whimper loudly, feels SkekUng’s tail curl around him in something like a protective or possessive gesture, but also feels something else poking against him from another sector of SkekUng’s anatomy. 

SkekUng doesn’t seem to have noticed his awkward position. Still hissing painfully under his breath, but also feeling his mouth twitch into a grimace of amusement, SkekNa deadpans softly, “You’re aroused my by suffering, my Commander.’”

  
The other Skeksis hastily draws back a bit. His eyes dart around as though there’s some denial or rationale floating about that he might snatch out of the air, then he gives up and looks down and mumbles, “Forgive.”

“Whatever. You are what you are. Probably be thinking the same thing, if I were you. Just as long as you don’t leave when I get out of this mess.”

  
“–Leave?”

“When I’m no longer suffering acutely. When I no longer have all my limbs.” SkekNa gives the other a pointed glare.

“We already talked about this. I don’t give a shit about your arm. And it’s not like ‘suffering acutely’ is some kind of–what’s the word, prerequisite.” SkekUng manages to look grouchier than usual, his face now next to SkekNa’s on the hard floor. 

“To be fair, you’ve rarely made me suffer acutely.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“So tell me you’re not leaving.”

“‘Shard’s sake, SkekNa, I come down here and groom you and pick bugs out of your wretched hide when I could be minding my own damn business.” SkekUng huffs loudly at the glare he continues to receive, causing drool to land on them both, which goes unremarked upon by either party. “I’m not leaving, idiot.”

“Good.” SkekNa feels a ridiculous wave of relief, of warmth almost, and nips gently at the underside of SkekUng’s jaw. “I’m not in a position to stop you. You could do what you like.”

“What, here?” 

“No, imbecile, on the bloody dining table.”

SkekUng glances about furtively, prowls around for any potential lurkers, then returns and hunkers over SkekNa, giving the situation due consideration. “That wouldn’t be great for my reputation, if found out. And.” He grimaces oddly, as though he suspects he’s not being as sadistic as is his wont and is embarrassed about it. “Don’t want to, well, make this worse on you.”

“This can’t get any worse. Might distract me from it. And anyway, you’re at least partly lying.” 

SkekNa makes some cursory attempt at moving his tail aside, which is rendered mostly moot by the rattling chains. Predictably, SkekUng’s inclinations get the better of him, and he lays one hand at the base of the tail to further secure it, inching another up the simple robe SkekNa was left with for the duration of his punishment. SkekNa eases from his side onto his back, a delicate operation that involves extending his left arm back behind his head to keep it from twisting at the elbow joint and jolting the affected forearm. Unable to return SkekUng’s somewhat painful tracing of his body as adamantly as he usually would, he settles for passivity, letting the milder pain of talons in his skin–talons placed at a somewhat cautious angle, leaving only light scratches, poking into soft regions with uncharacteristic restraint–divert the exhausted attention of his senses from his moldering forearm. This is a good hurting, not that of rot and loss, but of connection and collision and of freshly sprung blood that proves he is still alive. SkekNa tilts his head back, partially lidding his eyes so that he can half see SkekUng above him and half see the scintillations that come when your eyes are shut against the world. He buries the claws of his remaining hand in SkekUng’s ruff, but doesn’t bite him or curse him.

SkekUng has stayed by him, helped him. Granted, SkekNa might be slightly delirious with pain and dread; he might well indeed claw SkekUng’s face off when he gets out of this predicament. But now he feels pliable, like reeds swept under some current that will keep them out of a spreading fire onshore. He pulls SkekUng in closer with his legs, the end of his restrained tail lashing in frustration, careful only to lift and unbuckle the parts of SkekUng’s regalia that will give him access. It would do neither of them any good for anyone to find a fully disrobed Commander here fucking the chastised party. SkekUng digs into SkekNa’s ribs with his talons, leaning his full weight on him to hold him down, at least partially an act of concern to keep SkekNa immobilized above the shoulders to avoid damage to the arm. He takes him slowly, but with hard thrusts, SkekNa hissing and mewling in a brackish tide of anguish and pleasure. SkekUng’s motivations are not to be easily categorized, and their nature hardly matters. SkekNa is grateful.


	8. Down in the Valley

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> UrNol is having some problems.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning: Brief description of festering wound.
> 
> Yes I am aware UrNol is said to have more like a missing finger, but you got me writing this story and you have seen the sort of shit I pull, so here we are.

UrNol wakes, disoriented, drenched in sweat, the ever-present pain of his disintegrating arm screaming at him, yet detached for the moment from that pain. There was a dream, the memory of its content already gone, but orgasmic, strangely reassuring.   
  
  
“UngIm…” UrNol mumbles, still half asleep.

“For whom do you call?” A concerned, exhausted, perhaps slightly perturbed voice. UrIm has been tending him since the nightmare started, sleeping on the floor beside UrNol, the Healer growing increasingly agitated over his inability to mitigate the situation. The hand and its unknown malady have been a source of horror and confusion for days now, as UrIm tries in vain to heal it, as they wonder what sort of injury UrNol’s Skeksis other could possibly have sustained to initiate this ghastly ordeal.  


The Herbalist blinks slowly, the pain returning in its clarity, whatever dreamspace he’d been occupying floating away like motes leaving a sunsbeam. “For–for you…”

UrIm scoots closer, his face haggard, putting his arms around UrNol while diligently careful to avoid contact with the front left forearm with its patchwork of exposed muscle, adipose tissue, bone, gangrenous flesh where flesh remains. The arm reeks, but UrIm never acts like he notices. “I could try a different additive to the water, I don’t think the last worked with those particular sequential–”

“No. No, try nothing.” UrNol looks the other UrRu dead in the eye, knowing UrIm will not take this well. “I–was dreaming, I was with my dark half, I think, and I see that we…must let it go.”

“What?” UrIm glares down the sharply-angled ridge of his snout.   
  
  
“You won’t be able to heal it. This was no accident. They are…doing this to him. They will keep doing it, until it is done.”

“Who would–why–?!” UrIm would literally not harm a fly, but he has a bit of a temper. “I will not suffer those vile creatures to do this to you, I–”

“Stop.” UrNol places a hand over the other’s muzzle, in an attempt to be playful, to make the news that UrIm is powerless gentler on him (although, now that the Herbalist understands, he is inwardly grumbling with impatience). “No one is doing anything _to_ me. Collateral damage. They decided– _he_ must be made to suffer. You’ve done your utmost. I’m grateful to you. I always am. But, you can’t stop this. Please, let it go. It will be worse if you don’t.”   
  
  
UrIm’s countenance is belligerent at first, and slowly assumes a look of mortification as he reflects on the new information. “I’ve been making it worse, this whole time.”

“No, no. You didn’t know. No one knew.”

“Still, I am sorry for the suffering I’ve…protracted upon you. Maybe–I could…” The Healer hesitates. “Amputate it?”  
  
  
The stinking arm flares painfully at this suggestion, as though it understands. The arm would probably like to be gone, as much as UrNol would now like it gone, seeing the inevitability of it, and yet– “No, I don’t think so. If we–cut my dark half’s punishment short, excuse the pun, they’ll probably just do something else to him to compensate.”  
  
  
  
“I can’t abide those creatures. That _one_ –is a plague upon my soul. I don’t doubt _he_ had some hand in this.”

“Actually, no, I don’t think he did. You and him…from the same place.”

UrIm glowers, but also looks like he might start weeping. “That’s never stopped him before. You mean to say he…?”

“I’d say he doesn’t wish my dark half any particular harm, at least.”

“Hm. Interesting.” The Healer pets the Herbalist’s hair absently, and heaves a beleaguered sigh. “So you’re saying we can only wait?”

“Seems so.” Well, they are UrRu, waiting is just about all they do these days in any case.  
  
  
“I’ll wait with you then.”

“I’d like that.”

UrIm curls up around UrNol, to wait.


	9. Canister (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SkekNa is released from his punishment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning: Grotesque description of aftermath of Bugs(™), quick medical gore.

Whatever process SkekTek has puzzled over, that seems to have slowed things down, ceases abruptly. SkekNa’s arm continues falling to pieces, the constant tension in his jaw and around his eyes finally abating as the innervation and blood supply to the ruined thing run dry. One evening, he greets SkekUng with a weirdly elated expression. He curls his remaining hand around the back of SkekUng’s head, draws him in close, and whispers with a fevered look:  
  
  
“ _I_ have done this. _I_ have lost this. No one else has. I have lived.”

SkekUng blinks, intrigued and a bit unnerved. This sounds like some sort of conversion experience, though not of a brand SkekZok would have preferred. “You have. You’re done. Fuck them. They’re releasing you tomorrow afternoon.”

SkekNa’s eyes light, partly with sheer joy and relief of the sort one might feel standing in a sunsbeam after a chilly downpour, partly with a deranged glee. “Perfect timing. I’ve learned.” His eyes dart back and forth and he leans in closer and whispers. “I’m the better for it. I _know_ its face now, that pain I’ve, as Emperor put it, _reveled_ in doling out. Can’t say I’m a hypocrite now, can’t say I’m a coward now. I don’t have the humility the Priest wanted from me. But. I have a _type_ of humility, now. Due to you. You helped me. I’m the better for it.” He tilts his head up, licking around the edge of SkekUng’s mouth. “Don’t let them take my bones. I’ve earned those.”

There is a mild squabble about the bones, after everyone has assembled in the throne room and SkekNa has held up the still-encased remains of his forearm and recited diligently (and completely insincerely, SkekUng can tell), “This is what comes of the hand that strikes the Empire’s Priest.” When canister is removed, the reek streams out of it, along with bits of gristle and dead insect husks and insect excrement. Half of the bones on the dead hand, still vaguely articulated by some remainder of ligaments, fall to the floor with a clatter, and many of the Skeksis shriek and jump back. SkekNa, clearly enjoying the horror wrought on the Skeksis by his predicament and not without some mild horror himself, peers at the filthy scaffolding of his lost forearm, then crouches before the Emperor, defleshed limb held off the ground with the remainder of the carpals and metacarpals and phalanges clattering. “I would like to keep these bones, sire.”

SkekTek erupts quietly. “For what–? This is a sterling opportunity, to study Skeksis anatomy, being that we–”

“Be silent, Scientist.” SkekSo, head angled sharply to the side, peers down at SkekNa. “Keep them then, if you can remove them, here, without help.”

SkekNa hesitates, looking both stricken and determined. “May I be–supplied with a blade?”

“Eh,” says the Emperor, which SkekUng takes as assent. He hands his scimitar to the Slave-Keeper. SkekNa, kneeling on the patterned flagstones, lays the ruined arm down and considers it for a long, eerily silent moment. He holds the blade awkwardly in his right hand. He _had_ been left-handed. After adjusting the distance and angle of his strike a few times, he closes his eyes and brings the blade down with a clang and a crunch. Not enough to take the thing clean off. “Oh, this is horrible!” SkekEkt crows in mortified delight, hiding his face against SkekAyuk’s collar and peeking out between his talons. SkekNa strikes twice more, while some of the Skeksis crane their necks forward and others wince further back into their collars, then collapses, the remnants of the forearm lying on the floor next to him. 

SkekTek, clearly less than pleased to be ordered to tend to the wound without so much as a tiny medial distal phalanx as a reward, shuffles down to the lab ahead of SkekUng, who is supporting a half-conscious SkekNa. The Scientist mumbles under his breath the entire time he shaves the remaining necrotized tissue away, ties off nerves and blood vessels, removes and smooths the end of the humerus with a small sawlike tool, and sews the surrounding flaps of skin into a grotesque stump.

The Scientist produces another canister, filling it with some strong-smelling mixture of fluids, and places the arm bones into the solution with a pair of tongs and a look of beleaguered resentment. “Here. These aren’t sterile, they’ll need to be in here for at least half an unum to remove the remaining tissue, eliminate bacteria, et cetera.” He hands the canister to SkekUng, since SkekNa is down a hand and still woozy from the partial anesthetization given him for the procedure. “Should you change your mind,” SkekTek adds wheedlingly, “and decide such morbid trophies are of no utility to you–”

“Yes, yes, I know where to find you if that happens,” SkekNa snarls weakly. “Fucking little ghoul,” he grumbles to SkekUng as they leave the laboratory.  
  
  
SkekUng leaves SkekNa at the door to his chambers, passing him the new canister with the arm bones shifting about in the surgical-smelling solution. “You’ll–send for me if you need anything, yeah?”

“Of course.” SkekNa clutches the canister in the crook of his right elbow and leans up until the tip of his beak brushes SkekUng’s. “I reckon I could stand to be alone for a bit. Lots to think about, you understand. If I need anything, yes, I’ll send for you. When I need you.”  
  
  
/–/–/–/

  
SkekNa shuts the door, leans his back against it for a moment as though to keep out any nosy Skeksis (although part of him had wanted SkekUng to stay), then staggers to mantle, still woozy, and sets the canister down on it. The bones clatter around at the disturbance, slowly settle again. He figures on laying low for a while. Let Skeksis recall that he was last seen hacking off the remnants of his own limb, rather than permit them to see him traversing the dark halls and appearing at meals with a pitiful stump. Yes, he’ll take meals in his quarters, and only allow SkekUng to visit, until the prosthesis is ready.

He’d have to let the damned Scientist in, too, to approve the final design of the prosthesis–well, the hook, that sounds much better–and probably for some additional measurements, and to check on the healing process. At least SkekTek isn’t one to gossip. 

Feeling a bit faint, SkekNa shuffles carefully to the window and leans into the deep sill on his remaining hand, and raises his bandaged stump in the waning illumination of the last sun above the horizon. 

For a moment he’s numb, finally looking at it properly, without distraction. Then he reels with horror, nearly blacks out. 

Then, euphoria surges over him like the tall plateau grasses in a high wind. _He_ has undergone this, there is no arm where one should be, yet _he_ lives and breathes, and cleaves to his grudges, his loyalties. _He_ has survived _this_. None else among his kith have. He laughs into the dying of the light.  
  



	10. Consumption (II)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SkekNa finds a creative way to process his trauma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning: Totally consensual but very morbid sexual encounter in the last scene. Not sure how else to warn without spoilering. :[ 
> 
> \- - -
> 
> I've debated whether this merits an "Explicit" rating, but I'm not terribly explicit in my level of detail, mostly just very messed up in my subject matter?
> 
> Also this chapter was much longer than intended. I've been trying to stick to very short, succinct chapters for these two trashbirds, as I think they would both prefer to be short and succinct. But I tried, and I still had quite a bit to say.

The carriage careens over the long arc of the bridge, dangerously near the brink of control as it barrels downward to the road out onto the plateau. SkekNa, looking out the south-facing window, can’t help but grip the half-drawn curtain with his remaining hand. It’s mildly exhilarating, also mildly alarming (and what is the difference, anymore?). 

“It’s fine,” insists SkekUng, though the gravity of the downward plunge, while pushing SkekNa back in his own seat, is attempting to throw the former forward across the short length of the carriage interior. SkekUng braces feet and tail on the floor until they’ve cleared the bridge and the road has leveled out. There were plenty of tests of the new armalig-powered carriages to ensure they’ll make the bridge without the vehicle, the armalig, or the passengers sustaining any damage. The first tests were done with nebrie in the contraption, just in case, then later trial runs with Skeksis when it proved viable. SkekUng has volunteered to test the carriage for a long-distance journey, to Stone-in-the-Wood, which is really just an excuse to get away from the Castle for a couple nights. SkekNa was brought along to help; SkekUng suggested this in a way that implied such menial duties, cleaning gravel and grass out from between the armalig plates, were a suitable way for a recent miscreant to reintegrate himself. Really, it’s just an excuse to get them both away from the Castle.

SkekNa has his canister safely stowed in the baggage under his seat, along with the hook. SkekTek, two evenings prior, had installed something at the end of his stump, which will help the arm muscles control the few motions the hook can make, although the Scientist advised waiting a couple days to make sure the flesh won’t reject the hardware before actually attempting to affix and use the hook. SkekNa might give it a try, away from the Castle: come back sporting it, alarm underlings and unnerve Skeksis– Yes, it would be preferable to return with the hook well in hand, so to speak, but SkekNa has a more pressing agenda. His tail twitches with a somewhat nervous excitement. He pushes the curtain back more and watches the land and sky positively fly past. Much faster than running, than phegnese, certainly much faster than the time he tried to run away on a phegnese and SkekUng had the good sense to fetch him back. 

Seeing the other watching him, SkekNa turns from the window to remark a bit plaintively, “This is no good, the land is moving backward.”

“We’re the first who really get to use this cutting-edge technology, and that’s all you have to say about it?” SkekUng huffs, wiping the predictably-drooling corner of his mouth with the curtain on his side of the window. “The land isn’t doing shit, the carriage is moving forward; you’re just sitting backward.”

“Why do I need to sit backward? You get to sit forward and see everything normally.”

“Because I’m the ranking Skeksis in this vehicle. I take whatever seat I like.” SkekUng watches SkekNa’s tail as it continues to lash against the floor. “ _You_ take whatever seat I like. Come here.”

SkekNa considers being belligerent for its own sake, since he often is, but decides against it. SkekUng has more than earned a bit of compliance. SkekNa shuffles the couple paces across the carriage and starts to wedge himself into the seat next to the other Skeksis.   
  
  
“Not there, halfwit.”

Finding himself forcibly pulled onto SkekUng’s lap, knees splayed out on the cushioned seats, SkekNa wavers between vexation and arousal. His typical response to being physically coerced, even playfully, is to fight, whether he wants to escape it or not. Since his ordeal half an unum ago, though, he sometimes has no fight for SkekUng. He arrives at a compromise, complaining, “Now I can’t see the scenery at all, just your dullard face,” and nipping the tip of the other’s beak. 

SkekUng snarls, gripping him with one hand on his throat and one hand on his nape, and turns his head a little roughly over his shoulder to the window. “There, you damned well happy now?”

The road is inclining upward, too gradually to really notice. Eventually it will climb through the dark wood, into the rocky highlands, later onto a steep ridge where their view will be an impressive one of the Black River flanked by sheer layers of greenery descending steeply into mist. Clouds and grass flow by. SkekNa stills his twitching and grumbling. He leans into SkekUng’s hands and replies “Yes,” in an almost scandalously sincere tone he’d not quite expected to leave his mouth. SkekUng’s claws trail away from his neck to dig into his back, but not hard, and they both watch the changing of the land as the carriage barrels forth, pushing at each other with exhausting, breath-grasping languidness, eventual release soiling the inner layers of their garb.  
  


/–/–/–/  


  
SkekUng is bored with the impromptu late lunch feast the Gelfling had hastened to muster upon the Skeksis Lords’ sudden arrival. He’d explained that they were testing the armalig carriage, and thought to stop by Stone-in-the-Wood and pay regards to those through whose land they passed. During the meal, he solicits any knowledge they might have on armalig behavior and life cycles, as these things are still novel to Skeksis raising their first captive generation. It flatters the small folk, to seek their advice, and it passes the time.

When SkekUng deems enough time’s elapsed to excuse himself, he goes down to the Skeksis guest quarters that were recently delved into a small rock outcropping on the lakeshore a quarter mile from the village. He finds that SkekNa’s already chained the armalig out to forage and removed the accreted debris of the road from the chinks between their plates. SkekUng hadn’t really expected the Slave-keeper to attend to this drudgery, and had in fact warned him sternly not to injure the armalig (under pain of being dragged back to the Castle by the tail, bound hand–just the one hand–and foot). The Fleet Commander grunts under his breath in surprise and ambles around the curve of the rock face.

The outcropping is about twice his height. Scraggly, leaning trees grow precariously at its edge, their dangly branches casting a fragrant, shifting curtain of grey-green leaves and pale blue flowers over the gravelly beach that fronts the guesthouse. There are two separate rooms, as Skeksis most often travel by twos. SkekUng looks into the room they’d chosen, finds it empty, and continues farther around the rock to find a rivulet skipping steeply down to the lake. 

Here SkekNa is couched on a broad, flat boulder. He has removed the sterilized bones from the canister and set them on a cloth beside him. He’s washing them in the swiftly-moving stream, one by one, to remove the smell of the solution they’ve been bathing in for a half-unum. He holds each one up to look at it, clean and wet and glistening in the sunslight, his arm shaking with horror or pent-up catharsis, before setting it to dry on another cloth with the others. His tail twitches ceaselessly. 

SkekUng is struck with an odd combination of fascination, admiration, arousal, and something–something like an overripe fruit in his chest cavity that makes almost want to creep up behind SkekNa and grab him around the waist and–not do anything to him really, just hold onto him? SkekUng shakes his head, a bit uneasy with the mire of reactions. SkekNa probably wants to be alone anyway, he points out to himself, and he retreats, quietly for once.

  
  
/–/–/–/

  
  
SkekNa skulks or struts back to the guest quarters–he’s gotten good at doing both simultaneously–,toting the clean bones in a soft cloth with the corners drawn together in his one hand. SkekUng is crouched at the end of the dock projecting into the lake, half obscured by the fronds and blossoms of whatever these trees are (SkekNa has a vague interest in the trees, a desire to classify them and insert them in some taxonomical box, but he ignores that; that’s a dead business, something no Skeksis aside from the whinging Scientist would take an interest in now). It seems SkekUng is trying to spearfish, or more likely he’s aimlessly watching the lake and holding a spear for the sake of looking dynamic. Nothing large enough to spear is likely to visit these shallows.

SkekNa is aware that his superior is waiting on him; he has some sort of power over SkekUng, in some ways. His neckfeathers puff up a bit, and he goes into the guestroom, not bothering to call out to the other Skeksis. He unfolds the cloth atop a chest of drawers and lays the bones of his left forearm and hand out, sorting and re-sorting them. There’s something calming, some element of control, about organizing, classifying. It’s why SkekNa was put in charge of the Podling servants, as Skeksis make sure to call the slaves to their faces: the Podlings all look alike to most of his kith, but _he_ remembers each face; and which duties are charged to that face, and what discipline the owner of that face has undergone in the event of a job shirked or done poorly.

The late afternoon wanes into evening, and the light through the green-and-blue frosted glass windows dies slowly, and SkekNa’s pupils dilate and adjust to the greying and the darkening within the room. He stops tarrying with the bones and takes the hook out for a while, tests its sharpness just below his clavicle, mildly surprised to find the pain and blood of the act enjoyable. 

Well, no, he’s not entirely surprised. He’d have told any Skeksis with the gall to ask that he was a Thra-damned sadist, but some new thing had sprouted at the base of his spine when he endured that prolonged and grotesque castigation. If the world sees fit to hurt you, a bit of masochism isn’t out of order, just to spite its face. It’s only sensible. And anyway, now he knows about hurting, and that only makes him more qualified to hurt whomever should require it–Podlings servants, Gelfling guards who really fuck up, other beings encountered on farther-flung excursions to gather in knowledge and resources and menials.

The door swings in upon on its new, well-oiled hinges, silently. SkekNa doesn’t hear it, but the remnant of dusk’s light from outside barges in on him. He sets the hook down a bit hastily, naked from the waist up, still eyeing his reflection in the mirror, the thin lines of blood extending perpendicularly from the lateral cuts on his neck and chest.

SkekUng’s eyes take a few moments to adjust, and then he grumbles, “What the _fuck_ , SkekNa,” although he doesn’t sound entirely surprised or entirely upset. He shuts the door hastily, locks it behind him.  
  
  
“My Commander, I need to test this before usage. You understand that? What a clusterfuck, if I used it on some of the help first and it turned out dull or ungainly.”   
  
  
“Sure.” SkekUng’s reflection in the mirror behind SkekNa attempts to shuffle past casually, pauses and gawks.  
  
  
SkekNa swallows back his longing, as he’s swallowed back his rage, as he’s swallowed back his bile. “Just–go about your business. I’ll be along shortly.” He stows the hook again, renews the pondering of his bones. Evening is coming on quickly now. Some incoherent growls and grumbles emanate from SkekUng, then a lantern flame rears up with all its flaring light and shadow. SkekNa watches his own pupils contact rapidly in the mirror. He absently runs the pads of his remaining fingers along one of his longbones, _radius_ if he recalls SkekTek’s blithering properly. The bone is wider and flatter at one end, and at the other end it has an almost perfectly circular protuberance. The circular end went into his elbow joint, right, and that’s how he could turn his hand about? He turns his remaining hand about, palm up, then palm down. He uses his remaining hand to trace a circle around his stump, palm down, palm up, palm down again. In the mirror behind him, SkekUng, having divested himself of his heavily regalia, is in an under-robe washing in a basin. For all that SkekUng is disgusting, he does keep himself as clean as he can. Really, most of them do, they’re just inherently disgusting regardless of their attempts to be otherwise. SkekUng is not pleasant to look at by any means, but SkekNa likes him anyway for some reason, likes that imposing, grotesque, and vaguely ridiculous form against his. 

SkekNa brings the longbone up, sniffs at it, runs it lightly along the tips of the vibrissae that protrude at the junction where his beak meets his face. He licks it very tentatively. It doesn’t smell or taste like much other than a chalky thing mixed with the wholesome lingering of the Stonewood springwater, but he nearly leaps out of his own skin. He glances into the mirror, finds SkekUng staring at him and salivating rather more than usual.   
  
  
Considering for a long moment, the bone held up near his face at a slant, almost like the neck of a viol, SkekNa tries to calm himself. He takes a breath and begins, in an inane way for which he could lash himself, “I’ve been thinking–”

“That must be painful,” SkekUng remarks dryly, his ruse as apparent as SkekNa’s own.

SkekNa rounds on his companion, “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you, SkekUng.” He brandishes his own bone like a weapon for an instant, then relents, lowering his right hand slowly. “Don’t mock me, my lord. I came along on this stupid errand and I cared for the armalig as you instructed, because of the…the esteem in which I hold you.”   
  
  
SkekUng glances away with an almost chastened expression. “You did. Your–thoughts?”   
  
  
Taking a few long, slow breaths, attempting to navigate his ire and arousal, SkekNa finally manages, “They decided they could take my arm. They decided they could have the very lowest beasts of the earth _eat_ it. They won’t have the last word. _I_ still have the best part of my arm, that crawling things can’t touch. They _won’t_ have the last word.” He curls his own belly and ribs, still sunken from the deprivation of his ordeal, neatly into SkekUng’s, nestles his muzzle up under the other’s mandible. “ _I_ will have the last word, SkekUng. And–”

SkekNa hesitates for quite a while, but the patently impatient SkekUng doesn’t harry him, only curls one hand around his back. “–and you saved me from complete ruin,” SkekNa rasps. “Help me with this?”

SkekUng, despite his bravado, seems rather caught off his guard. “Yeah, um…SkekNa, what do you want…?”

SkekNa throws reservation to the wind. Either SkekUng is his ally, or he is not. He pulls SkekUng down on the bed with him. “It’s _my_ right to chew on these bones, to do whatever I want with them. And, _you_ –have earned that right.”

SkekUng’s pupils expand enough nearly to blot out his irises. SkekNa takes the flat end of the radial bone and closes his jaw on it. There isn’t really any marrow left at this point. This is only a symbolic act, of self-destruction, self-reclamation. He begins to imprint the signature of his particular dentition upon the end of the bone. SkekUng stares him in the eye, registering an instant of genuine shock–which is beautiful, to manage to shock such a one–, before gripping the other end of the bone in his own incongruously short jaws and biting down with vigor. The circular protuberance at the proximal end of the radius is quickly marred with the scratches of perilously sharp fangs. SkekNa enjoys that, to see that ridiculously perfect geometric artifact of himself marred by the only person he has any regard for. He gnaws and drools more fervently at the distal end of the bone, gripping it in his mouth and using his remaining hand to dig his claws into SkekUng’s nape and pull him in closer. He had thought that, if it came to this, it would end up as it did eight out of ten times, with SkekUng penetrating him, but instead the other Skeksis shifts about a bit awkwardly until SkekNa is the one fucking SkekUng, on their sides, staring each other down with a mutually almost-terrified look, both chewing the longbone for all they’re worth.

  
“I’ve consumed myself,” SkekNa says softly, after they’ve come, quivering with the terror and power of what he’s done. He looks up at SkekUng, says even more softly, “You’ve consumed me. My life is yours.” 


	11. Baskets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Denouement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't think this needs warnings. Slightly dark final section, but if you've gotten this far it's nothing.

Upon the return of SkekUng and SkekNa, the latter has a semi-motile, gasping hook where his forearm used to be, which makes Podlings wince and even Skeksis cast him uneasy glances. After their first meal back at the Castle, SkekNa corners SkekUng against the wall in the corridor, his eyes too bright, a bit crazed, attempts clamping his hook around the other’’s throat. Anyone else would immediately sustain a broken wrist (such is at were), for such an act.

“ _Hsssh_ ,” SkekUng hisses, spittle flying, spattering the other’s face.

SkekNa is indifferent to that indignity, having even less care for how he may wallow in fifth, after what he endured through the loss of his arm. He smirks, tilts up his head to interlock the anterior portion of his beak with SkekUng’s. “I’m not making noise, my lord.”

SkekUng glances around rapidly, to ensure they’re alone (not because he has any qualms about exhibitionism, but no one is about to know that he would suffer a subordinate to grab him by the neck). “Damn, SkekNa. Keep it that way.” 

“Make me.” 

“Fuck you.” They retreat awkwardly toward SkekNa’s quarters, clawing and gnawing.  
  


/–/–/–/

They say the rosy petals shed by the Sanctuary Tree can traverse peculiar paths, join the songs of the slightest breezes that would never have borne the weight of any normal petal, to the borders of the map of Skarith, beyond that for all anyone knows. 

A contingent of the petals drift down into the Valley late in the afternoon, where UrIm and UrNol are huddled around an assortment of mortars and pestles. Dried plants are arrayed around them at seemingly random yet oddly particular intervals. Their long necks bend close together, quiet voices discussing the practical applications of these plants in medicine, tracing three-dimensional designs around and between them through the sand about them and the air above them.

UrAmaj suppresses a mild unhappiness at the reduced frequently of the Herbalist in his own culinary endeavors. After all, UrNol did lose a hand, and such an experience must prompt some interest in the healing arts, particularly when plants are as good for that as they are for eating. UrIm is an apt, sometimes almost frightening healer, but his head is in the clouds; he thinks in terms invisible energies that are subject to manipulation with the proper discipline. Bringing some practical knowledge into this endeavor can do no harm, and maybe can do good.

While the UrAmaj may have cause to analyze why UrNol is drawn toward UrIm’s work now, UrNol doesn’t try to attach any reasons to it. Really, it never occurs to him to wonder why. He goes where he is drawn, including, some nights, to UrIm’s bed.

The small shower of petals drops half its number gently onto the two UrRus’ work, and the rest re-twine themselves into some breeze to soft for even the observant Mystics to feel, and they rise back upward, westward.

/–/–/–/

One would like to think that SkekNa’s ordeal held up to him a mirror, to see his own suffering in the eyes of those upon whom he continues to inflict it. This is not SkekNa’s way. His fondness for blood only grows; as SkekUng told him many times, the suffering will pass away, into other nerves, its weight will become a problem for other souls to deal with. This unintentionally metaphysical notion of transference is SkekUng’s answer to UrIm’s invisible geometries, although the former does not know that he is answering the latter. SkekUng doesn’t think about these things anymore, since he split; he prefers not to think about things in general much, anymore at all, if one is to be honest.

On an evening in SkekUng’s quarters, SkekNa casually undoes the series of straps and latches affixing his hook, chattering quietly about the utter stupidity of the help and pacing languidly as he does so. SkekUng, hunkered on his couch and nursing a drink, watches with dilated pupils. The window is open, letting in a pleasantly cool early evening breeze. The room is becoming grey, its colors going with the last gasp of the light.  
  
SkekNa sets the hook down casually on the other Skeksis’ desk, pauses at the window. The breeze does something strange, a quiet upward note that sends a few pink petals spiraling into the room. Both watch the petals with mild surprise, buy say nothing about them.

“I…have never seen you take that hook off, around anyone, in all these unum,” SkekUng finally remarks. One petal lands in his drink (and who can blame it for craving such a pleasant baptismal?). 

“I haven’t,” SkekNa answers matter-of-factly, but with an undertone that sets SkekUng’s tail twitching. The Slave-keeper, although more careful in the presence of the Priest and the Emperor that was his prior wont, has lost little of his insolence. He bickers with SkekUng as much as always, gives back as good as he gets when they claw each other to ribbons mating–but, every once in a while, that new thing that lit behind his eyes the day he was released from his punishment stays his hand and he is pliant, almost reverential. The removal of the hook is no random act.

“Come here.” SkekUng points, not at the seat next to him, but at the floor. SkekNa crouches at his feet, a few petals settling on his head and shoulders as they exit their dance with the air currents, quietly nuzzling into SkekUng’s arousal though the layers of his clothes, licking at his fingers and talons. It’s fun to fight with SkekNa, but these random strange moods of his are fun too, more so for their unpredictability. It would be no fun if SkekNa always respected him–no challenge, no surprises.

SkekUng eventually drags the other up under him, biting at his throat, muttering the most idle and terrible threats. “I will take you apart, bit by bit. I’ll disarticulate every joint you have left in your body. I will clean my teeth with all your little tendons and nerve lines.”

The grotesque words don’t jar any unfortunate memories. They only send SkekNa’s blood molten, because he has survived already, because he’s discovered he likes his own blood in addition to that of others, because he knows SkekUng could do any of those things, should he want to, and that he doesn’t want to. He uses his gentle voice, the one most never hear. “Do whatever you like, my Commander. Frankly, your teeth could use a cleaning.”

One might hope that SkekNa’s affection, if that is what he recognizes it as, might refract out into the rest of the world as sunslight through the Crystal, casting a new light on other beings. But this is not SkekNa’s way. He cannot see his loyalty to SkekUng as a light that might radiate from him and transmute the violence of his heart into toleration. His loyalty is like a lone patch of glow moss in an obscure cavern, and its light travels no farther. He beats the Podlings more than ever, when he can get away with it (the Gelfling, little snobs that they are, fail to notice or care, and they remain devoted to their Skeksis lords). After all, SkekNa likes to sort things, as UrNol, unbeknownst to him, sorts different specimens into different baskets for different uses. SkekUng has one use, a unique one, a use that allows SkekUng to use SkekNa. No one and nothing else occupies that basket. The room is very dark now. There is no need of a light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to the small but very vocal group I dragged onto this ship with me for helping keep me going. I feel often stuck in a liminal space where I've gone beyond the pale for some readers, but still don't have enough edge for other readers. So any encouragement is good encouragement. There will be more stories about these two.
> 
> If anyone out there is wondering, "Lock, will you ever return to your wholesome GraGoh fic, you execrable traitor?" I swear to Thra I'm trying. It's just going very slow because it's hard for me to focus on and feel as though I'm doing well by such pure cinnamon rolls during these dark times. It's just more cathartic for me to meet dark with dark I guess.


End file.
